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Steve [Intro]: 00:30 Hello, and welcome to the teacher edition of the Steve Barkley Ponders Out loud podcast. The complexity of teaching is both challenging and rewarding. And my curiosity is peaked whenever I explore with teachers the multiple pathways for facilitating student engagement in the exciting world of learning. This podcast looks to serve teachers as they motivate coach and support their learners.

Steve: 01:00 Teaching so that every student matters. I recently received an email following a facilitation of a workshop that I did for teacher leaders at the Kai-wen academy in Beijing, China. The email was from Wayne Roland, who’s the head of PE at the school and Wayne wrote about an experience that he had earlier in his career in a school in England. He identified a strong connection with some of the things that I was sharing in my middle leaders workshop around the concept of of every child matters. And so I responded to to Wayne and asked him to join me and he’s agreed and I’m excited to have him share his thoughts and insights with you today. So welcome Wayne.

Wayne: 01:53 Thank you, Steve. Thank you for having me.

Steve: 01:55 Can you tell us a little bit about the role that you had at the school in England and where did that fit your teaching career? And maybe go on share a couple of things that you shared with me about how you saw your experiences there impacting you as a teacher.

Wayne: 02:16 Yeah, so Halifax High takes me back to 2005. I spent eight years, eight fantastic years, a very good grounding for me in my career. I was there as first of all, teacher of physical education and then towards the end of the eight years, I was promoted to head of physical education which included IGSAP and also S and L level PE. From 2013, I then went into international education. My wife actually being Turkish, she was unable to get a visa to come and live in England so that’s why we moved into international education and ended up in Qatar. In Qatar, we spent four fantastic years. I worked at a good school Doha Academy. Really enjoyed every moment of that. And then from there after of four years, we felt it right to make another move and that took us to Kai-wen Academy where I am currently head of secondary PE today and going into my fifth year this year.

Steve: 03:33 So the time at Halifax, was that the very beginning of your teaching career?

Wayne: 03:39 That was right at the start. That was my first eight years in education. And like I said, really enjoyed and really set me up for my career today.

Steve: 03:51 So you could really connect with my comments then about the beginning of my teaching career being in that in that laboratory school where where I received all that support and observation and coaching and teamwork. And that was 50 years ago and it still has a big impact on the work that I’m doing in education today.

Wayne: 04:20 Of course. I worked under a special head teacher, Mr. Jeremy Waxman, who really gave me an insight into the professional self and the way we should teach and the way we should educate young people and putting really, the students first in all the decisions that we make in school.

Steve: 04:47 When you described the school to me, you said that it was a system based on trust, integrity, care, and love. I’m wondering if you’d expand a little bit on those.

Wayne: 05:00 Yeah. I mean, in terms of the, the support network that was always there for me, if I had any question, and that would be literally any question, I was always able to find somebody in the senior leadership team that would be able to care and support me. Again, I felt that right from the start, I was always looked after in my progression in the school and was helped from becoming a teacher at the start into my role as a head of physical education towards the end of my eight years.

Steve: 05:45 Wayne, you mentioned in the email that you sent me, specifically the impact that the student mentoring program had on on vulnerable students. So would you describe that in a little more detail for us?

Wayne: 06:02 Yeah. So staff members at Halifax High School were given the opportunity to mentor young learners within a mentorship program, including vulnerable young learners at immediate risk, gifted and talented young learners, CD borderline GCSE students, and every learner in the school had a mentor. I had the privilege of mentoring several young learners in my time at Halifax, two of whom, Ali Raja and Kareem Shazad, two fantastic young men. I would like to share my experiences. Ali Raja, he didn’t have an experience at home that would allow him to take part in any sport, music or such an activity outside of school. Inside school, Ali was extremely passionate about rugby league. He loved playing it and he loved talking about it. I had a contact rugby club, not far away from Halifax and communicated with the club about possibly taking Ali to some training sessions on a evening.

Wayne: 07:25 And if good enough, get some game time in one of the teams on a weekend. As Ali had no means of getting to the ground, I used to take him training two times per week, and when selected, games on a weekend. In terms of in terms of Kareem Shazad, one of the most talented students I think I’ve ever taught. But he needed more than his talent had decreased on the football field. So I tried to help him with his talents, realizing his talents in other subjects in the school. Going back to Ali, unfortunately, Ali passed away in 2014, suffering from a rare form of bone cancer, osteo sarcoma. I spoke to Ali a few days before his passing.

Wayne: 08:31 I’ll never forget what he said to me. He said, I will never forget what you did for me, taking me to rugby. And Ali passed away just a few days after saying that to me, it was a pleasure to have known and helped that young man. Kareem Shazad, he went on to study in America and now has a successful career and actually plays their semiprofessional football in England. Sort of a great young man that always had it him, but needed a mentor to kind of bring it out of him. Through this mentorship program at Halifax, learners knew that they were loved and felt, and they felt valued through this program. They didn’t feel that, oh, no, I’ve done something wrong or, I need to improve in this area, but it supported personal growth, helped learners to become positive global citizens. And it also lent itself to learner participation and behavior and helped learners to make correct informed choices inside of school, but also it filtered out into the local community as well.

Steve: 09:55 I’lll tell you what’s going through my head as I listen to you – that every gift we as a teacher might pass on to kids in those those settings comes back to us double over.

Wayne: 10:10 Definitely it’s a wonderful program. And keeping in touch with teachers at the school, this program, even though head teachers have come and gone, is still going very strong.

Steve: 10:24 I’ve always been a strong proponent of, in many schools in the states, they’re called advisory programs, but the concept that every student school is someone’s responsibility to totally know that student. And in my own language, I’ve described it as malpractice when we don’t implement it. And even worse is implementing it poorly, which some schools do. But it’s a real opportunity to provide payoff to everybody and remind both students and teachers why we’re really there. There’s a word that I wanted to to run by you. In a lot of my work with with teachers and teacher and administrator leaders, I talk about the need for leaders to make themselves vulnerable and that frequently, when I show my vulnerability, that that helps me build trust. And I’m wondering if you have any thoughts on how vulnerability played into the things you saw happen at that school, both to build relationships among the staff, as well as relationships between staff and students?

Wayne: 11:45 Yeah. I mean, one thing that I would like to speak there about is, within the staff mentorship program, that senior leaders would have maybe three or four junior teachers that they would be able to shadow them, both during their senior leader role, but also in their eight to 12 lessons per week, as all senior leaders at the school did. And we would be able to go into the classroom and observe the senior leaders and be able to give the senior leaders feedback into what we think the senior leaders could do to improve or had maybe missed in the classroom. And I think it could have been something to build relationships between staff members, but also on a serious note, I think it was that senior leaders were older than the junior teachers, the junior teachers coming fresh out of the qualified teacher status and may be able to actually teach some of the older senior leaders some of the new things that are going on in the classroom, for example, technology, which is constantly changing.

Steve: 13:11 There’s a phrase I frequently use in my leader training called model the model. So if you, as a leader, take on the behaviors that you’re looking for other people to take on, and then I move that same phrase back to the classroom, as a teacher, I wanna model the model. So the more that a teacher is is illustrating learning in front of the kids, when the kids see the teacher learn, that’s an outstanding example for students.

Wayne: 13:40 That’s fantastic.

Steve: 13:41 As we wrap up here Wayne, a thought that went through my head as I read and listened to your background at the experiences you had in that school, there was a lot built into the structure of the school, the way the administrative team worked that supported you as a teacher to take on these actions of keeping students at the center and every student being important. Some of the listeners to this podcast are likely having a thought go through their head that that’s not where I’m working now. So I’m wondering what thoughts or insights you have as to how do I, as a teacher, what can I do to begin to make some of those things happen, even if I don’t have the whole organization of a school set up to to back it up and support me?

Wayne: 14:38 Yeah, of course. And I don’t think I will experience such a settle. I hope I do but I don’t think I will, but what Mr. Waxman said to me, my head teacher before I left for international education, he said, always keep your own personal expectations as high as you have done here, wherever you may find yourself. And that’s certainly something that I I’ve had to do in the two schools since I’ve worked at Halifax high. But I think something that teachers personally can do is, if the network’s not there with senior leaders, a network is always possible with regular teachers, and that is to have strong, healthy, collegial relationships amongst school teachers in the classroom. And if you have that, that is what is absolutely essential for school effectiveness and teacher enhancement. And if there’s something that Halifax high taught me is that we work as a team.

Steve: 16:01 I was just gonna say, you’re singing my song – teaching is a team sport.

Wayne: 16:06 Of course. And I was always given four reflective questions and then asked what my response would be in affecting student learning. And the first one is that school leaders should always encourage staff to share ideas rather than compete with each other, which I think can be very dangerous. Staff always behave how they would like students to behave, staff to treat each other with respect and also staff to have a strong sense of belonging. And that’s something that I will always take and I will always consistently have in my career moving forward.

Steve: 16:57 Well, Wayne, thank you so much. I appreciate your thoughts and insights. I’m so glad you went out of your way to drop me an email and connect your connect your thinking back to me. I’ll post your email address in the lead-in to this podcast, so if people have thoughts or questions, they can contact you directly.

Wayne: 17:18 Thank you, Steve. Thank you for the opportunity.

Steve: 17:20 You bet. Have a great day.

Wayne: 17:23 Thank you.

Steve [Outro]: 17:25 Thanks for listening in folks. I’d love to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter @stevebarkley, or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs at barkleypd.com.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTSteve [Intro]: 00:00 Hello and welcome to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast. Instructional coaches and leaders create the environment that supports teachers to continually imagine, grow and achieve. They model an excitement for learning that teachers in turn model for students. This podcast is dedicated to promoting the important aspects of instructional leadership. Thanks for listening.

Steve : 00:28 Real work equals real learning at school. This podcast was triggered when I read the following news headline: “McDowell manufacturing, a company inside the high school is producing real parts and career interest. It intrigued me, I needed to learn more. So I fired off an email to Kyle Buckholtz the tech advisor for the program and he agreed to join us on this podcast. So welcome Kyle.

Kyle : 01:00 Thank you for having me.

Steve: 01:00 Kyle, I’m wondering if you would just jump in by kind of painting a picture for people. If they were there for a day at McDowell manufacturing, what would they see happening?

Kyle : 01:12 Sure. We have 51 students enrolled in the program right now, and those students would be working on producing parts for real companies right here in Erie, Pennsylvania, but also doing the quoting, doing the accounting, doing the job estimation, in terms of material costs and things like that. So the full gamut of a business operation would be occurring, not just the production of the parts, but the business end of it too, right here in McDowell.

Steve : 01:40 Could you talk about the the vision that you guys had and the process that you went through that got you to the point of of developing this?

Kyle : 01:52 Yeah, it was kind of a synergy between a nonprofit here in New York called NWRC – Northwest Industrial Resource Center and the school district’s vision for where we should be going in terms of career training. It all came together two years ago at the same time. It was this amazing experience that happened where the NWRC approached us and said, hey, we have this great idea for a student run enterprise and I think your facility would be a great facility to have it. That was at the same time the district was committing to renovating and adding equipment to our area down here and that kind of collided. And we were able to to put this program together and and have this student run enterprise right here at McDowell high school.

Steve : 02:39 So the piece that I read that caused me to get ahold of you, it said the students are working with 30 companies and that they’ve produced over 7,000 parts and that the students really are engaged in all aspects of it from a company standpoint. Could you give me a little clearer picture of what all aspects means?

Kyle : 03:05 Yeah. Actually we have eight customers right now in terms of companies. We’ve worked through tours and things like that with those 30 companies and we’re well over 7,000 parts. I promise you that now. But all aspects refers to, they’re actually communicating with the customers, they’re communicating with our suppliers for our materials, they’re going and getting those quotes on how much does the material cost. And then backing that process up and figuring out what do we need to charge the customer for those parts. So that end of it, but also the end of it in terms of production, in terms of drawing the parts in our CAD and cam software, they’re working on that. And I’ll be honest, they’re also working on cleaning the shop and making sure it looks nice. So it is truly all aspects of the business. It’s not just one part of just machining. It’s the full business. And I get the question a lot on, do you break the students up into different categories? We do in terms of different job roles, but when there’s something that needs to go out the door and that part needs to be shipped today, we have all hands on deck. So the person that was doing the accounting might be doing production at that point, just so we can meet the demands of our customers.

Steve : 04:22 The real concept of of teamwork.

Kyle : 04:25 Sure, absolutely.

Steve : 04:27 I’m delighted that you had a couple of students who could join us here. So I’d love to hear the students talk about their experiences. So anybody want to jump in first?

Student 1 : 04:43 I know that I personally have always enjoyed coming in and doing even the accounting aspect as well, but I’ve really enjoyed the designing part. I know that’s something that will put me ahead of other students as well, but I really enjoy getting that drawing and then having to design it. It sometimes might not be as easy as it seems, it might be a little bit more difficult than other times, but it’s amazing to see how that small drawing can turn into the actual part. And then when we hear about those parts being shipped out to Texas or other parts of the country, it’s amazing that we made that our little small town of Erie and that people are using it around the United States.

Steve : 05:19 Very cool. Very cool. Someone else?

Student 2 : 05:24 I know for me, my favorite part of the whole process is getting to machine the part and see it actually from the life after all the hard work of going through contact with companies and drawing and redrawing. I just like to see a tangible sort of like proof of our hard work.

Steve : 05:40 So it’s a real payoff. It sounds like it’s different from an A on a test. A different payoff?

Student 2 : 05:49 Yeah.
Steve: 05:50 Yeah. And the other student there – go ahead.

Student 3: 05:57 So my favorite part is just the machines themselves. They’re some of the coolest things you will ever see in your entire life. They’re so impressive to watch run. And for people that want to go into like a machining field, this is the perfect opportunity for them because it will help them go to college and it gives them skills necessary to actually get a job in the real world.

Steve : 06:17 Well, you actually led me into the next question I was going to ask. So maybe you can extend it a little bit and we’ll come back to the to the other two ladies there. I was going to ask you how you thought the experience you’re having now might be impacting you in a future directions or decisions.

Student 3 : 06:39 It’s just experience, like I said. Our big motto here is like, these machines are the future, the experience we’re getting here, this is bringing us and a lot of the engineering community into the future in that aspect. So it’s just helping with the next big step in manufacturing.

Steve : 07:01 I guessing that if the opportunity wasn’t there there’s probably not another place as a student that you could see and even know about these opportunities?

Student 3: 07:16 Absolutely right.

Steve : 07:17 Ladies want to jump in? Your thoughts about how it might impact you your future thinking or decisions?

Student 1: 07:24 Yeah. So I know for me, I’m definitely looking into going into engineering and as a female in not field, I feel like this really sets me apart from my competition because I gained some experience now in high school and learning some of these things now, whereas people might not have that until further down the road. So I think it’s very beneficial aspect.

Student 2: 07:47 And I know for me personally, something that we use a lot is those drawings I’ve talked to other engineers,and I’ve shadowed some other ones and their biggest thing is that we’re learning how to use those programs. But of course, you can learn to use those programs on your own, you can always learn to use those things, but we have the experience of seeing an actual part. There are times when on the computer, it might look perfect. It might completely run. And then we’ll put in the machine and we’re like, what is going on? And so, it was this something like fixing those situations, we’re getting the experience of how, if we make a mistake, what we need to fix it, how to look through and see what’s going on. And I think in future in engineering, that’s something that other students won’t have. They might know how to run the program, but I’ll know the difference of, oh, well this is in your program, but I know that this doesn’t work, where they’d spend hours trying to figure out why it’s not working.

Steve : 08:38 I think I’m hearing critical thinking is a piece of what you’re learning.
Student 2 : 08:42 Yes, very much so.

Steve: 08:42 That’s terrific. Terrific. Students, before I leave you to wrap up with Kyle I’m wondering what I didn’t ask that I should have asked. What is it about other schools that are thinking of of a program along this line that would cause you to encourage them to to look at it?

Student 2 : 09:08 I would say there’s no reason not to do it. We have an opportunity and everyone should take any opportunity they can, as it always sets you apart from others. But I think the biggest thing is not only teamwork, they’re learning things that will help you communicate better with others. You’re also learning better things that’ll help you set it up, set you apart as terms of education and work experience. So you’re getting benefits on all three aspects and I think any of those benefits, even one would encourage you to try and take the opportunity.

Steve : 09:38 Kyle, I’m definitely hearing career ready.

Kyle : 09:40 Yea. We try, we try.

Steve: 09:40 So Kyle, I’m wondering what recommendations you might have for other educators looking at how their districts might create a similar possibility for students.

Kyle : 09:55 I think one of our biggest goals when we put this program forward was making it an environment that was inclusive for all students. I think a lot of times, traditionally, in technical education shops, it was intimidating to people in terms of it may not be the cleanest environment, it may be loud and it scared some students away just in terms of intimidation. And we really put a huge focus on making an environment in the classroom here that’s super clean. We have plants all over bright lights, windows. We made an environment that makes it exciting and fun, but also a place that’s welcoming. And I think that really has contributed to our enrollment numbers, having this really nice facility that students want to be part of. And that would probably be one of my biggest things is to encourage people to do that.

Kyle : 10:49 The other would be providing the latest and greatest technology that you possibly can. Obviously budgets matter. But we really tried to push the boundaries of technology. So Fifth Axis, Milling Black Tool Lathe Operations, we just got a robotic welder in that we’re one of the first educational institutions in the country to have this model and AJ was actually programming it yesterday. So it’s it’s an awesome piece of equipment, but that’s the other thing is push the boundaries of technology because you have these technology natives here that know how to do it all. You’re able to push those boundaries and and keep them excited on the future manufacturing.

Steve : 11:30 I’m just laughing to myself, thinking about my seventh grade shop class and how funny it would be for you kids to take a look at the limited set of of tools to bang and shape something was about all that that was there. So it’s just been great to listen to what opportunities are here. Kyle, I’m wondering what’s the best way that that listeners might get back in touch with you to ask some more questions or find out additional advice from you?

Kyle : 12:07 Yeah, sure. Email is honestly the best way. My last name – bucholtz@mtsd.org. And just email me and I can put you in contact with myself or Bobs Zaruda from NWRC, who has been a foundational partner in this program to making it all happen too.

Steve : 12:32 Thanks a lot. And we’ll be sure to to put your email in the lead-in to this podcast so folks can find it students. Thank you so much and give my best to your staff and the rest of the students in your program. I hope you continue your excitement to be on the cutting edge of where learning can take us off. Thanks for joining me.

Steve [Outro]: 12:58 Thank you for listening. You can subscribe to Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud on iTunes and Podbean. And please remember to rate and review us on iTunes. I also want to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter @stevebarkley, or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs at barkleypd.com